Tavern Stories
by child-dragon
Summary: In which a blood elf angsts, an orc speaks without thinking, and someone makes a tauren milk joke. And then the blood elf angsts some more.


Eonthane's hawkstrider stumbled on the broken pavement of the lower city of Shattrath and the blood elf cursed at it, a habitual gesture that really had lost all impact long ago. The beast was used to being nothing more than that – a beast. It regained its balance and tried to navigate with the tight hold its master kept on the reins. Around the priest the refugees and beggars gave him a cursory glance, maybe a quick plea for aid but little else. They had long ago learned that most that rode through cared little for their plight and although Eonthane's name was known among those that controlled the lower city – it wasn't for his charitable deeds.

He left the hawkstrider tied up outside the World's End Tavern. The brightly lit interior was already starting to fill up and in another hour sunset would fall across the city and then the place would truly be packed. He hoped to be gone by then as he disliked the push and shove of a noisy tavern. However, he had promised to at least stop by and if nothing else, he was honest and his yes was something to be held to. He paused in the entrance, quickly surveying the people already there. A table in the back filled with humans. They were the largest source of noise so far. Around the middle of the room were his companions. They stood out, not only because of their location, but because of their sheer bulk. Eonthane made his way over and slipped into a chair at the very end.

A hearty greeting rose to acknowledge him. He barely nodded in response. They'd all dressed nice for this gathering and left their armor behind. Well, almost all. Next to him, the tauren shaman Warraven, her braids pulled back and the usual trinkets and feathers she tied into them gone, her kilt instead decorated with these furs and other ornaments of the natural world. Next to her, another tauren shaman, Aeir, which he knew little about. Her raiment was a bit more flamboyant, proclaiming her ties to the elements. And yet a third tauren, Rokkh, still wearing armor but not his usual battered combat regalia. Just for show. Eonthane marveled that the bench had not collapsed under the weight of the three from Mulgore. Across the table was orc Molinu, who had definitely not changed out of his armor and it was only the spread of incense and the aroma of food that made the stench of wet tiger (sitting beside him, growling happily as big cats did) and gunpowder bearable. It was probably why that side wasn't claimed by anyone but the orc.

And Eonthane had only his rich black velvet robes and a thin belt to hold a dagger with a red tassel near him. Molinu often commented that it made him appear only two breaths away from being one of the Forsaken with his pale complexion but Eonthane had long ago learned to ignore those comments from the orc. He'd learned to ignore Molinu, for the most part.

"We've already ordered drinks," Aeir said, leaning in the table. It creaked ominously. "Molinu ordered yours since he remembered you don't drink alcohol."

The elf nodded slightly, his expression its typical unreadable mask and his eyes slid over to the table of humans in the corner. They were laughing at the end of some story and gods… they had a magic user with them. No. Two. He could fairly feel the arcane power they emanated and for a moment Eonthane felt cold despite his robes and the warmth of the building. One of the mages turned and caught the elf's glance and Eonthane turned back to the table, disguising the movement by pulling his red-brown hair back behind his ears.

Molinu also said he looked like a girl. He had learned to ignore that comment from the orc as well.

No doubt the mage was still watching him.

Their drinks arrived and Eonthane let his glance linger on the barmaid for a moment as she walked away. Then he noticed what Molinu had ordered him and sat up a bit straighter, one hand absently touching the tassel of the dagger.

"Orc," Eonthane said softly. He never used names if he could help it. "Why did you order a glass of milk?"

Warraven and Aeir fell to snickering, trying to hide it behind their own drinks. Eonthane's ear twitched.

"Well, yous all skinny like and you need somethin' to keep ya from being killed off like quick. Yah already look like yous half-dead. Milk helps, so I hears."

"I can see why you took up goblin engineering," Eonthane replied, his tone sharp, "Gnomes – even if they did manage to destroy their own city - would know better than to let an imbecile like you near any of their patterns."

Aeir snickered, Warraven took a resigned swig of her mead, Rokkh just watched with a slight disapproving glare on his muzzle, and Molinu fell into what was probably going to be a lengthy explanation on the virtues of explosives. Rokkh managed to circumvent it by bringing up the question of Halaa's defenses.

Eonthane stared off at the other patrons of the bar. A high elf that had managed to say too much and was known as a member of the bronze dragonflight. She was drinking at the bar. Eonthane wryly hoped her constitution was enough so they wouldn't have a drunken dragon on their hands. An ogre further down… some draenai in another corner, engaged in serious debate. Did they ever loosen up? There was a magic user of some kind with them as well and Eonthane shuddered and stared at the top of the table.

"Just burn the bridges…" Molinu was saying.

He'd been there, a few times. The fighting had dissolved into a melee with neither side really defending or attacking. It was hard to tell who held the outpost. He was staying on the back lines, as he always did, feeling the surge of power in his veins, like fire. It was a heady taste and despite the sun his skin was cold and it was hard to keep from shivering. His own fault, for failing to control his own addiction. It rewarded him with cold and a constant aching need. He fought it off in his own ways.

He couldn't see the enemy and this frustrated him. Eonthane remembered that fact very vividly. He wanted to be closer to the front, where he could see the press of shield against sword and find a mind – they stood out like lanterns in the night – and rip it apart. Push his pain of addiction onto them and let their veins hemorrhage and watch them fall with blood trickling out the mouth and ears as their brain died and all their memories slowly turned to dust. But that wasn't an option. So he summoned up the discipline of the body instead, crude magic, meant for when there wasn't much time left between life and death. Holy magic closed wounds without really knowing what they were, pulling skin together, starting a heart that had just stopped seconds ago, and keeping those that should die alive for just a bit longer. He hated it. They called it holy and it burned like fire in his blood.

He stepped back from the fighting at some point, having lost track of his companions – Warraven was probably laying in her own blood near the middle of the battle, no doubt – and saw a troll dragging a body backwards out of the fray. The two looked alike, their armor torn, but the one that was laid not far from his feet was seconds from death, his chest torn open on one side, the ribs shattered and the lung destroyed. Eonthane looked away.

It was so easy to do.

The priest didn't remember much of the troll's plea. It didn't matter – Eonthane had exhausted his capabilities and to draw any more power would just start damaging his own body. He wasn't going to half-kill himself for a stranger.

"But yah a priest!"

He had smiled thinly and laughed, for he had heard that thrown at him so many times. They saw his robes; they saw that he had not embraced the shadow discipline of the mind. They expected a certain person… and that was not what he was. The troll had hit him, mostly out of despair, and Eonthane had been knocked to one side of the bridge, coughing on blood from a split lip. The troll had returned to the front of the battle, howling a warcry that promised to split the skulls of whoever had killed his friend. And nearby, the wounded troll quietly bled to death.

Holy, shadow. Good, evil. It wasn't some absolute. They were just concepts, words and ideas given to help understand these things that were so intangible. He wielded the holy power but was he good? Such a thought amused him. He was honest, yes, but he was ultimately selfish. That was all. Good and evil could come and go and be defined by whoever wanted it to suit their needs and he would have nothing to do with it. All that mattered was what he desired.

When the battle was over Eonthane did not even try to summon the spirit back to the body. It was gone. Besides, he had to call Warraven's back, for she had indeed fallen in the middle of Halaa in a pool of her own blood, her spirit hanging on to the charms she wove into her braids.

"You going to drink that?"

Eonthane shook himself back to the present and real. The tavern was filling and sure enough, the sun was starting to set. Molinu was pointing at the glass of milk, staring intently at him from behind his goggles.

"I do not think it is appropriate to drink milk in the midst of such upstanding company," Eonthane said carefully.

"Oh, that joke is old," Warraven muttered.

"What you mean by that?" Aeir said suspiciously.

Rokkh, again, changed the subject. And when he did, Eonthane stiffened.

The tavern was crowded now and Eonthane could feel the minds around him, the ones that channeled arcane power in some form or another burning brightest in his senses. He tried to focus on what the large tauren warrior had said.

"My dagger?" The priest carefully unsheathed it and set it on the table so they could see. Rokkh grunted. "It's not for casting, as you can see."

"He murdered his brother with it," Molinu announced and took another drink of beer as Aeir spit out hers.

"I did," Eonthane replied quietly, sliding the blade back in the sheath. He would have left it at that. They didn't need to know any more.

"Course, his brother was a traitorous bastard," Molinu continued and Eonthane cut him off.

"Regardless, I would have killed him despite his loyalties."

"Your own kin?"

"Did you hate him that much?"

Aeir and Rokkh didn't know. Warraven had buried her head in her hands, having been around during that particular incident. Molinu just looked stupid, which was not unusual. Eonthane felt his heart flutter with anxiety. Too many people here. He stood.

"I loved him very much," Eonthane said. He'd leave them with the truth. "I even looked up to him when I was younger – that is probably the reason I killed him… He wasn't what I thought."

And he turned away. As he did he bumped into the human mage he'd seen earlier. The man said something, trying not to spill the multiple drinks he carried and Eonthane lost it in the swell of voices. For a moment all he felt was the man's mind, the lure of power, right there for the taking.

He saw the mage falling to the ground, his power ripped from him to swirl through Eonthane's veins, the mugs of ale spilling to the ground, dark against the stone… he saw the mage screaming silently, holding his head as the priest stood over him, the word of a spell on his lips, a burst of his own memories wrapped with a casing of power and turned into something deadly…

Warraven's hand pulled his wrist away from the pommel of the dagger. The mage had passed by him and was already back at his table. He exhaled softly, barely registering the shaman asking if he was alright.

The elf pulled away and made for the door. The three tauren and orc watched him go before Warraven shrugged and said something and returned to her mead. Outside, Eonthane breathed of the cold night air for a few moments to clear his head of the bright interior. Already the chill was seeping in through his robes and despite them being his warmest he shivered. He didn't want to go to Silvermoon tonight. There would be room on the Scryer's Terrace for the night. He untied his hawkstrider and swung himself on, the slits on his robes exposing his legs and billowing the fabric around behind him. He kicked it, harder than he should, and the bird made a sound of protest and started off, navigating the broken city, trying not to stumble in the falling night.


End file.
